Fig 2. Shedding kinetics of sialylated mucins.

Living parasites were incubated with Neu5Az donor. A) Acquired Neu5Az was followed by flow cytometry to determine its shedding kinetics. B) Western blot and C) immunofluorescence of the parasites from (A). Western blots indicate that Neu5Az was readily accepted into diffuse bands between 80-150kDa corresponding to the trypomastigote mucins [7]. The shed material was recovered in the conditioned media indicating that the residue was not hydrolyzed but conserved in the shed material. C) Fluorescence microscopy. Sialylated mucins fluorescence intensity fades while TS labeling remains. Raw images are shown to avoid biased observations. Bar: 10μm.